


Cooking Adventures and Mishaps

by violasarecool



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Cooking Lessons, Fluff, Gen, hawke mansion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-19
Updated: 2016-06-19
Packaged: 2018-07-16 02:45:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7248958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violasarecool/pseuds/violasarecool
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>leandra teaches orana some of her favourite recipes; hawke gets to eat them. everyone wins, even if the house smells like burnt pie for a while</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cooking Adventures and Mishaps

It was early morning still when Hawke scarfed down breakfast that day—eggs and fresh bread, courtesy of Bodahn—but by the chimes of the Chantry clock, she was somehow still running late to meet Aveline. "You ready, girl?" she called to Ser Barkington as she struggled to pull her gloves on with her teeth. The mabari gave a loud bark, tail wagging frantically.

She was just about ready to leave when she heard footsteps on the stairs, then her mother's voice:

"Hawke, have you seen Orana?" Hawke turned as Leandra came down the steps. "I told her I would teach her how to make those raisin biscuits she loves, today."

"She just left," Hawke said, stopping to give her mother a kiss on the cheek. "My fault, I had a letter to deliver."

"You couldn't have done it yourself?" Leandra sighed.

"I could have, but Lowtown's in the opposite direction of where I'm going today. And you know she likes to be helpful."

"Yes, she does, that dear girl," Leandra said, smiling. "Well, then, I suppose I'll just have to sit idly until she gets back."

"Whatever will you do with yourself?" Hawke replied, smiling as she opened the front door. "Come on, Ser Bark, let's go!" 

* * *

When Hawke returned later that afternoon, she was greeted by a cheerful 'Hello!' from Sandal, and a burning smell. "Bodahn?" she called, and the dwarf hurried into the landing.

"Mistress Hawke, you've returned," he said, smiling. "Did you have a pleasant outing?"

"Surprisingly, yes," Hawke said, "it was almost relaxing." Which wasn't a lie: at this point, the rhythmic motion of shooting spell after spell at yet another group of untrained assailants bordered on monotonous. But the less the other members of her household knew about her more dangerous activities, the better. Hawke glanced around, her nose starting to itch from the burning smell. "So, if you were waiting to catch me in a good mood to tell me the mansion's on fire, now's your chance."

"To what?" Bodahn stared at her for a moment, then his face cleared. "Oh, you mean the smell! Not to worry, there's no fire—except for the one in the kitchen, earlier."

"Ah." Hawke snorted. "Did mother burn the biscuits?"

"Actually, those came out very well; I tried one myself, and so did Sandal. Delicious recipe, isn't it, my boy?"

Sandal grinned. "Yes."

"They had a few problems with the pie, however. Came out black all over, had to toss it entirely."

"Icky," Sandal said.

"I bet. Mother always was over-ambitious," Hawke said, shaking her head, though she was smiling. "Where are they now?"

"Oh, they're still in there. I don't know what they're making now, but they said they'd take care of dinner today, so perhaps something more savoury."

"Thanks, Bodahn," Hawke said, and she stooped to scratch Ser Barkington behind the ears before heading into the kitchen.

Inside, Leandra stood at the large wooden table in the middle of the room, Orana beside her watching the rhythmic motion of the knife as Leandra chopped up a carrot. "It doesn't matter too much if they're not all the same size," she was saying, "but if you leave them too big, they won't cook as quickly. About this big is good," she said, holding up a disc of carrot.

"Okay," Orana said, and Leandra set down the knife, pushing it over to Orana along with another carrot.

Hawke walked quietly around to the other side of the table, waving as she approached so as not to startle them. Leandra looked up, smiling when she saw Hawke. "Did you have a good afternoon, dear?" she said, and Orana glanced up, just noticing Hawke herself.

"Good afternoon, mistress," Orana said, nodding to Hawke.

"Hey, Orana," Hawke said. "It was good, yeah. And from what Bodahn said, yours has been... _interesting_ , at least."

Leandra laughed; Orana gave her an amused look. "He told you about the pie, did he?" Leandra said, and Hawke shrugged and nodded. "We did alright with the biscuits—they're over by pantry, by the way, if you want one," she said, pointing to her left, and Hawke inched over towards them as Leandra continued talking, "but the pie was too ambitious, I'm afraid. We'll have to do some experimenting, I'm not used to all these rich ingredients."

"Mmff." Hawke made a noise of agreement through a mouthful of biscuit.

"Good?" Leandra said, and Hawke nodded. "I do love that recipe, your great grandmother was an incredible cook." She looked over at Orana, who was almost done chopping up the carrot. "Maker, you're so neat, I don't know how you do it."

Orana blushed. "Thank you, mistress."

"You don't need to go quite that slowly, though; it's going to be sitting in a puddle of gravy with everything else."

"And it all gets chewed up in the end anyway," Hawke said with a wink.

"Yes," Orana said, smiling. "Although—" she caught herself, glancing uncertainly between Hawke and Leandra.

"Go on," Leandra said kindly, "you can say what you're thinking, it's okay."

"Oh. Um." Orana set down the knife beside the pile of carrot slices. "I was just going to say, but we don't usually see food after it's been chewed. ...Unless someone threw up, and that's not very pleasant." Hawke choked on a chunk of biscuit with a laugh, and Orana glanced up, somewhat alarmed. "Are you alright?"

Hawke coughed, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. "Fine," she wheezed, "I just wasn't quite expecting you to say  _that_ , Andraste's—" she glanced at her mother, who frowned at her, and she cleared her throat "—hat." She grinned at Orana. "So you'd rather be ridiculously neat than make food that looks like vomit?"

"Yes," Orana agreed.

Leandra shook her head at Hawke, who gave her mother an innocent shrug. "So what are you making, anyway?" Hawke asked.

"Well, these carrots and turnips, and some potatoes, and I sent Orana for some beef while you were out. We've been eating so much fish, I thought we could go back to something a bit more Fereldan."

"Sounds good to me." Hawke licked the crumbs off her fingers, wandering back toward the door. "I'm going to go change, then I thought I'd drop by Fenris's mansion for a bit, unless you need anything."

"No, we're fine," Leandra said, waving a hand at her, "you can go distract your friends instead."

"Love you," Hawke called, grinning as she swung around the door.

" _Goodbye_ , dear," came Leandra's reply, and Hawke laughed.


End file.
